Staff Management

Do you have staff meetings at BSB ---- NO

Well not the sort of staff meetings where staff contribute to the discussion or where any decision might be altered by comments from staff. Not the sort of meeting where staff ever get to vote on any issue.
Oh no, staff meetings are to be avoided at all costs, unless some overwhelming matter arises that requires the staff to be lectured on some issue.

The system used by Jo Wells (also uses Puddy-Wells as her surname) is that of a senior management team (herself and the KS coordinators) who meet weekly, plus individual weekly meetings with each if the coordinators. From there, diseminated downwards only, are weekly key stage meetings, some of these are quite democratic but KS2 are not.

The KS2 coordinator is a total control freak.
One staff member was told at interview, Yes you can make up and use your own history uit if you want to. No No No says the KS2 coordinator - you must do this unit and this one only (despite limited to non existant resources for the said unit).

You must mark in green pen
You must present me with a weekly plan showing everything you plan to breathe for the next week.
You must then go over it after the week and highlight in green things that went well, in red things that did not and in yellow things you could improve. (sorry if I have the colours wrong)
Her weekly staff meetings are one way sessions only.

When the report format was changed she insisted on have a box for comments and a font size that allowed 340 words. Unfortunately teachers feel they have to fill such boxes so the outcome of ten reports or so on each child was a huge dossier of meaningless words. And if yu take the kid for music or DT or art and have only seen them 6 to 8 times then you still have to fill in this box. Fortunately some rebels forced the box size down and the font size up before the next set of reports - its still excessive though.

One teacher, who had been employed to start in October, due to another wiser teacher resigning, arrived to find that she had only three weeks to get to know where her kids were at and to have these reports done. She asked for a laptop to take home at the weekend to work on the reports (the school had half a dozen for use by staff), "No you cannot" says the KS2 coordinator, "can I have extended time then" she asks. "No, must be in on time"
Another staff member, hearing of the plight loans her her computer and then goes to make the point to the principal ,Jo Wells, that the KS2 coordinator was being pretty tough.

Do you think she was listened to, sorry no. She got soundly abused for undermining the KS2 coordinator.
The problem is you see, that because the KS2 coordinator is a paranoid narcissistic, she is great mates, really great mates with the principal so that the principal will not hear of any complaints against her friend.

I could go on for a long time but I am sure you are getting the flavour of the management at this school.

If you want more info, look out for upcoming staff experiences